Hearts of Steele
by Shadsie
Summary: PostAnime oneshot. Meryl takes Vash, Milly, and a recooperating Knives to the great Wonder of Steele advertised in the local paper...a nearly intact SEEDS ship. She uncovers secrets about the past, and her predecessor, Rem. Written for a challenge.


Disclaimer and Notes: Trigun belongs to Yasuhiro Nightow and other such anime and manga people, Victor Entertainment and all that.

This was originally written for a challenge given on a little Live Journal one-shot fanfiction community called "trigun shots." I found out after posting that Lalieth was the issuer of this particular challenge (as part of an anonymous challenge-issue). So, this fic is dedicated to her. I thank her for jogging my brain.

This was written in October, 2005. I just have been lazy about getting it formatted and posted here. I'm posting here, mainly, at the request of Celesma.

The challenge was a "Genre/Character(s)/Word to Use" challenge, the particular challenge listed below. I believe that "Steele" was simply a typo of "steel," but I worked the typo into the fic. (During centuries of usage, languages change. I figure during the Deep Space Future that is Trigun – some words may have lost their original spellings).

Genre: Angst/Tragedy

Characters: Meryl and Rem

Word to use: "Steele"

o0o

"HEARTS OF STEELE"

Her father had told her that she had a heart of steel. It was meant to be a compliment, but Meryl had never liked that metaphor. Her father had meant that she had a strong heart, determination – an iron will. Meryl had always thought of steel as cold and hard. Having a heart of steel meant that she was shielding herself, unable to let anyone in, that she had armor on her heart, that she was cold and hard. The more she thought about it, however, the more the description of having a "heart of steel" felt true to her.

Steel, however, was malleable when new and hot, and could be shaped into many different forms. The world was built on steel. The taller buildings of the great cities were structured and supported with steel rods and beams. The ships that had carried the world's ancestors to the planet were composed largely of steel.

The ships - the ones that were left, anyway, had always fascinated Meryl. Lost technology had long been scavenged, used to the extent of its life, and… lost. Portions of ships buried in the desert sands, old communications equipment, surviving Plants – all were infinitely valuable and closely guarded resources. Maybe that is why she insisted that Milly, Vash, and Knives come with her to see the "Wonder of Steele" that was announced in the national newspaper.

Half of a ship had been discovered between Inepril City and December. The two cities decided to turn the ship into a museum. None of the Plants that had been connected to that ship had survived. The computing equipment was full of sand and the wiring was corroded. The leadership of the cities had decided that the broken hull, the decks, and what was left of the vessel served educational purposes best. It was a piece of the past that had not been scavenged to create a settlement. There was much that scientists, engineers, historians, and the public could learn from it.

It was billed as the great, historical "Wonder of Steele," which was not a typographical error. Not many people still spelled the word "steel" anymore. Vash did, but Meryl had pointed out to him that it was an archaic spelling.

So, Meryl, Milly, Vash, and Knives had taken a bus out to the site. Vash had not wanted to come. He stayed to the back of the tour group, wheeling Knives in his wheelchair. Knives, for his part, remained quiet, only making the occasional grunt about the obnoxious smells and sounds of humans. Ever since his defeat by Vash, he really couldn't do much other than complain.

The tour had been standard – the type of tour Meryl had experienced in most museums. The docents pointed out the unusable computers and other communication equipment and explained what each machine and console had been used for, to the best of their knowledge. The group had seen the reconstructed bulb of an internal Plant. Knives and Vash said nothing, though both were visibly uneasy. The tour finished and the visitors were allowed to wander around the ship, looking at the Lost Technology at their leisure. Vash took Knives out to the museum lobby. Milly followed them. Meryl chose to wander around the corridors.

The woman found herself alone when she came to a great room with a domed ceiling. The room was walled in steel. Meryl thought of Vash. He and Knives had grown up in a ship like this, according to what he'd told her. She tried to imagine this room, the ship, as it once was – a womb of steel, carrying life through the cold void of space.

Meryl heard the laughter of children. She looked behind herself. No one was there. No one was in the room but her. She saw something out of the corner of her eye. She quickly turned. Two blonde children ran giggling, chased by a young woman in blue jeans with long, dark hair. The figures didn't look entirely "there." Meryl could see through them to the walls, as though they were made of glass. The figures disappeared. Meryl shivered. The room had grown cold. She felt uncomfortable here. She wandered down the corridor back to the room that housed the empty Plant bulb.

A few museum visitors milled around the Plant. They walked up and down the stairs to the platform up to the glass of the bulb. Meryl climbed the stairs, holding onto the handrails. The Plant looked like many others she'd seen, only that the glass was very clear. She could see all the way inside it, up into the fixtures that once held the inner creature, now long dead and gone.

"Don't! They're children! I don't care what you think they are! They're children and I will not let you hurt them!"

Meryl sought the source of the urgent voice. She whipped her head around. Someone was going to hurt children? All was quiet. Everyone else was calm. An old man looked at her as if she'd just lost her mind. Her eyes widened as she looked down into the bulb. A ghostly figure stood there, a figure in a hazardous materials suit of the type that some Plant engineers wore. The figure had its arms outstretched, as though protecting something. Meryl blinked and the figure was gone.

Meryl's reflection stared back at her from the thick glass of the bulb. Meryl looked at it. It started to look different. It looked as though it was changing. The hair of the reflection was longer than her own, much longer. She knew she had gray eyes. The reflection's eyes were a rich, warm brown. She ran the fingers of her right hand against the reflection. Her pale fingers met the fingers of a well-tanned hand. The nose of the reflection was different than hers, longer, thinner.

Meryl had once asked Vash what his Rem was like. He told her that Rem had a heart of steel. He said that she was kind, soft, warm – things very unlike steel, but he'd also said that she was strong and protective. She said that she'd had a will that couldn't be broken. He'd said that she was the strongest person he'd ever known – strong, like steel.

Meryl saw her own reflection. Memories that were not her own swirled about her, in this place. She knew now why Vash did not want to come here. "This was his ship,…" she whispered to herself in realization. It was "their" ship, really, but Knives had seemed indifferent this whole trip. It was Vash who had insisted that they not come. It was Vash who looked sad and uneasy during the tour.

She decided to walk out to the lobby, to meet up with him, Knives, and Milly to go home. She stopped as she walked past an area that was open to the desert, out into the glaring sunlight. She heard weeping.

She saw a memory before her. The figures were like glass again, like ghosts. She knew the scene before her wasn't really there, before her, in the now. She knew, somehow, that she was peering into the past. Meryl stood and stared.

Fire and smoke billowed from the wreckage of the ship – its steel shiny, new, un-scrubbed by windblown desert sands. Blood stained the dirt. Broken glass and shards of steel were everywhere. Two boys, who looked in their preteens, were there. One stood, his back to the shipwreck, staring off into the desert. The other boy was kneeling and weeping. In front of him was something burned - something shredded and burned. There were scraps of something that looked like it was once clothing made from a synthetic material. The boy who was kneeling held something in his hands – a shining little pendant.

The vision disappeared as Meryl caught herself crying. She heard footsteps behind her. She gasped as she turned around to see Vash. Meryl shivered. Her lip trembled.

"Vash…" she whispered. "I… I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pressed you to come here. This place… I'm sorry. It must hold so many bad memories for you."

Vash looked down, and looked past her. He spoke slowly. "She was a lot like you," he said. "She had a heart of steel… And this is where I found her."

o0o

Shadsie, 2005


End file.
